[3][4] Cooper, a cattle breeder, followed the customary path to politics in the National Party, becoming involved in the Bendemere Shire Council before being elected for the seat of Roma in 1983.
[1] At the time of Cooper's election to the seat of Roma, Queensland was under the reign of long-serving Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
By the late 1980s, the once impregnable Bjelke-Petersen government had begun to falter amid the failure of Bjelke-Petersen's ill-fated foray into national politics, and the establishment of the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption, which implicated a great many senior governmental and police figures in widespread official corruption.
A Newspoll released after the inquiry came out showed the Nationals at only 22 percent—the lowest result ever recorded at the time for a state government in Australia.
Polls showing Labor having its best chance in years to win government; indeed, if the result of the Newspoll were to be repeated at the election, the Nationals would have been swept out in a massive landslide.
All three political parties in Queensland had changed their leaders by 1989 — in addition to the Nationals, the Liberals were now led by Angus Innes and Labor by Wayne Goss.
The Nationals campaigned on traditional focuses: law and order, social conservatism, and attacks on the federal Labor government.
The Nationals produced a number of controversial advertisements, one of which alleged that the Labor Opposition's plan to decriminalise homosexuality would lead to a flood of gays from southern states moving to Queensland.
Following the redistribution, which followed legislation designed to rid Queensland's electoral system of malapportionment in favour of rural areas, Cooper transferred to Crows Nest at the 1992 election.
In February 1996, when Borbidge formed a minority government after winning a closely fought by-election in Mundingburra, Cooper became Minister for Police, Corrective Services, and Racing.